


Time and Space (A Dream for You)

by saltylikecrait



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Childhood, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force-Sensitive Finn, Hurt/Comfort, Loneliness, Mentions of Starvation, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-04-22 23:48:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19139314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltylikecrait/pseuds/saltylikecrait
Summary: In times of loneliness, Finn and Rey imagined they had a friend to keep the darkness away.





	Time and Space (A Dream for You)

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Finnrey Friday!

Laundry duty wasn’t bad, _per se,_ he’d rather be doing this than latrine duty, but with only droids to talk to and many of them programmed to largely ignore any conversation with humans that didn’t involve orders, FN-2187 started to find that his punishment wasn’t laundry, it was isolation.

It started to connect to why he was being punished in the first place. Phasma was losing patience with him and he knew it. This time, it was because he was stubborn to change his ways, going back to help out a fellow cadet who got her arm stuck between a wall and a barrier while trying to collect her lost blaster during a sim. FN-2187 knew he should have left her, but she was his teammate for this exercise and leaving a teammate behind felt wrong to him.

And when the sim was over, Phasma marched right up to him and sent him to the laundry facilities below the decks of the _Supremacy._ “To learn how to operate independently,” she said with a tone as cold as the chromium of her armor.

So that’s how he found himself here, doing the mindless task of folding and hanging clothes whenever a droid dropped a freshly laundered pile in front of him. At least it was mindless and not that unpleasant, FN-2187 told himself, but he had never taken on punishments in the form of chores without having another human around for company.

It was nice for the first couple of hours into his shift, but by the second day of duty, after not having a lot of chances to speak with his bunkmates or communicate with the other cadets as he usually did, FN-2187 was feeling uneasy in his work, trying to strike up a conversation with droids that spoke with human languages, only to become fidgety when the droids just spoke a few words to him before ignoring him for their work.

For the first time in his life, FN-2187 experienced the kind of loneliness that came from isolation and found it differed greatly from the loneliness he felt when he was with his fellow cadets and unable to bond with them, knowing they didn’t quite accept him as one of their own.

Then he got the idea that he could create someone to talk to in his own mind. Someone that he wished was around to be his friend. FN-2187 wondered if there was anything odd with having a friend that didn't exist, but he supposed it wasn’t much different from having the droids for company. As long as he kept this quirk to himself, he should be fine.

FN-2187 let his imagination go wild.

For some reason, his mind created an image of a girl tanned from the sun and dark brown hair pulled back into three interesting buns. Her freckles starred her light skin, but he could also see the thin lines of scars on any skin that was uncovered by the clothes she wore. Not that he was shocked that he thought up a girl for a friend, but it was strange to him that he would think of someone that wasn’t part of the First Order. Phasma would never tolerate the dirty and ripped rags that wrapped around her frame.

But something about the girl captured FN-2187’s thoughts. _We’re alike. You and I,_ she seemed to say with her eyes as she looked straight at him. Her eyes seemed bright, a caramel brown with flecks of green, like she was standing in sunlight. She looked unsure of herself but so full of promise and when she looked right at FN-2187, he thought he saw something mischievous in her smile.

Whenever he thought of the girl, he never felt alone.

* * *

“Blast!”

Rey looked out the old, dusty viewport of the AT-AT that she was slowly turning into a sad excuse of a home. It didn’t look like she’d be going out scavenging today. Outside, she noted how the sand around the old Imperial relic was being picked up by the wind and deposited a few inches away. It was not the usual gusts that Jakku experienced. No, this was the beginning of a sandstorm.

She dropped to the floor and quickly pulled back a loose panel where she stored her emergency rations underneath. Counting, her face dropped when she realized that she only had enough to comfortably live off for three days.

It would have to last for six, she told herself.

Her days were spent sleeping, brainstorming better ways to booby-trap her home to keep the other scavengers out, and working on piecing together the flight simulator she had dug up in the skeleton of a Star Destroyer. One day, she would learn to fly, she told herself, and when she did, Rey would leave Jakku to search for her family if they hadn’t found her yet. But she was certain that would be any day now.

Tallying the marks on the walls and adding the age she had found the AT-AT, she guessed that she was thirteen years old now, and she did an inspection of herself as she recalled that her body was changing, though the changes were so minor that she really took no notice. Her hips were wider than they were a year ago and her chest had begun to swell in the way that female humans did. There was more hair too, but she didn’t think much of it.

She wondered how much longer she would have to wait.

By the fifth day, her stomach pains were becoming unbearable. Rey was no stranger to hunger but at least when she was scavenging, she had something else to think about. To be safe, she was living off a third of a ration pack each day. But now, she was feeling dizzy when she stood up and her vision often became spotty. Resting was about all she could do, but her stomach kept her from sleeping for long.

And she was lonely. Well, she was always lonely, but this was a different kind of lonely. On an average day, she could get out and see the sky. Even with no one to talk to, Rey was free to move about and explore. Some days, she would look at the other scavengers and wondered what it would be like to have a friend, but Rey never found it in her heart to trust anyone. Already, she had seen what happened when you put your trust in the wrong person.

But it would be nice to have a friend.

She allowed herself to imagine one, shocked with her mind’s choices and how clearly she could see him. The details she imagined almost made him seem real.

She envisioned a boy a little older than herself, with dark skin that reminded her of the umber powder that was sometimes sold in Niima and the traders that came from Socorro every couple of months. His face was… well, she couldn’t quite describe it but it was certainly a face of a friend. His eyes were honest, and that was the most important thing about him. Curiously, she noted the pristine white chest plate of stormtrooper armor and wondered if he would have found it buried somewhere in the Graveyard. Or maybe he was a young bounty hunter or pirate that like to mix and match; the white was far too clean to be on someone from Jakku.

At some point, Rey believed that she fell asleep thinking about this boy. A name never came to her, nor did his surroundings or a scene ever come into motion, but she did hear his voice.

_We’re alike. You and I._

She wanted to reach out to him, to touch him, but there was always something preventing her from doing so.

Thinking of the boy always made her feel warm inside.

* * *

Running towards the cockpit, the man almost collided with the woman he met in Niima. Almost immediately, they broke into smiles and words of praise flowed from their mouths.

"That was some flying!" He still couldn't believe their luck. "How'd you do that?"

"I'm not sure," the woman answered excitedly. "I've flown smaller ships, but I've never left the planet."

He couldn't quite believe that either. "No one trained you? That was amazing!"

Cheeks tinting a light pink, the woman turned her attention to the man. "And you? Your last shot was dead-on. You got him in one blast!"

The man smiled back. "You set me up for it... but it was pretty good, wasn't it?" He was trying hard not to be egotistical, but it was hard not to be pleased with yourself when you just took down a TIE-fighter.

Silence passed between them as the pair stood smiling at each other. Comfortable with one another already, it was hard for either to recall the last time they felt like this. The man gazed at the woman's face and wondered why it looked so familiar to him. There was no way they could have met before his defection from the First Order. The way she looked at him with a quiet curiosity told him that she might have thought the same...

The droid at their heels chirped at them with urgency, breaking them out of their thoughts.

"You're OK," the woman said as she kneeled down to the droid's height. "He's with the Resistance. He's going to get you home. We both will." Then she stood up and looked back at him. "I don't know your name..."

"Finn," he answered, realizing he didn't know hers either. "What's yours?"

"I'm Rey," she replied with another quiet smile.

For a reason he could not explain, a memory long-forgotten resurfaced. Well, it was more of a voice than a memory, one that soothed him in the loneliest of times.

_We're alike. You and I._


End file.
